Wednesday will decide who hosts the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, with Morocco, Spain and Portugal, in an alliance bid, getting the former, and Saudi Arabia acquiring the latter.
Hosting for both tournaments will be decided by a vote in a virtual Fifa Congress, but there is no mystery about which bid wins without a competition.
The 2030 World Cup will be the 100th World Cup that Uruguay hosted and it will be the South American nation to get a game as well as Argentina and Paraguay, also in the bid.
That makes it a historic, totally unprecedented offer, one for three continental confederations.
Fifa already said more than a year ago that Morocco, Spain and Portugal’s joint proposal was the only candidate for 2030 with all others having dropped out.
British and Irish joint bid was canceled as they turned their attentions to hosting Euro 2028, and there were hints of South Korea, China, Japan and North Korea.
Four South American nations joined in 2019 on a united attempt to hold the 100th World Cup fully on the continent of its birth.
Uefa floated an offer combining Spain and Portugal with war-torn Ukraine in a moment of “solidarity” after the Russian invasion at the end of 2022.
But Ukraine was mysteriously dropped from that run last year when Morocco agreed to work with Iberian neighbours and South America had to withdraw in return for the hosting of three games, one each for Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
After these “centenary festivities” in the relative south hemisphere winter chill, the six teams and their audiences will have to traverse the Atlantic Ocean to take part in the remaining 101 matches.
That tentacular event is going to lead into the final on 21 July and where they are going to have that game remains to be seen.
It will be centre stage in Spain, where the 1982 World Cup took place and which owns 11 of the 20 planned stadiums.
Morocco — which has been unsuccessful five times before for the tournament’s hosting rights — will become the second African country after South Africa in 2010.
The final could take place at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid or at Barcelona’s revamped Camp Nou or the upcoming Hassan II stadium between Casablanca and Rabat, which will be “the biggest stadium in the world” (115,000 capacity).
Portugal (the hosts of Euro 2004) has two stadiums in Lisbon and one in Porto and will look to stage a semifinal.
In 2034, Fifa used its rotating continent rule, and so only Asia or Oceania will get a bid.The 2026 World Cup, the first of 48, will be played in North America.
Inconveniently, the body gave prospective bidders only a month late last year to submit candidacy and Australia and Indonesia quickly lost their footing.
That made Saudi Arabia the only candidate left, leaving the door open for the World Cup to return to the Gulf after Qatar hosted in 2022.
This 2034 World Cup will be the final blow for Saudi Arabia, which has been staging the major golf and tennis championships and Formula One race.
And since last year, Saudi also has star players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karem Benzema in the country’s premier football league.